Last Person

Date: 6th Mar, 2023, Mon

Writing Prompt: Last Person

***

Traffic jam. Again.

A super loud honk from the car ahead pierced my eardrums, sending a shooting pain through my skull. What now? I wondered, but wasn’t entirely invested in it. The driver in front must have been dreaming, or more likely texting on the phone, and not moved when he (or she) was supposed to. Not that I’ve…never done that myself before.

I stared at the red lights in between the swipes of the windshield wipers until they became blurry, then rubbed my hands down my face. It’s been a really long day at the office, and I thought I could have avoided the jam by leaving late. But of course, it had to rain, and there had to be an accident along the route home… So here I am.

I could feel my eyelids fluttering closed, and I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. Just hang on till we get home, I thought. Then a quick hot shower and bed, before it all begins again tomorrow.

I sighed. Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it. Ma has been nagging me to come home for ages. And it’s not like I stay on the other side of the country. KL and Seremban isn’t that far, really. Many even commute daily to and fro.

Another sharp honk made me yell out in frustration. ARGH. This, this is why I can’t do the daily commute. I’d kill myself. As it is, getting back to my condo in PJ that’s supposedly 20 minutes away is already taking me ages. Can you imagine travelling back to Seremban each time?

So I stay. And I work. Focus on my career. Everyone knows working in a law office is no joke. And as they say, when you’re young, and still building your career, you’ve got to pay your dues, no two ways about it.

That meant long hours, no sleep, no proper food. Filing and reporting, running to the courts, documentation, interviews, client meetings, and a lot of coffee. Oh, man. A LOT of coffee. If it wasn’t impossible, I’d have coffee flowing through my veins by now.

And Pa, on the other hand, is bugging me about getting a girlfriend. Like, really? Who has the time? I shook my head, put my car into gear, and move several inches ahead to put it back into neutral again. God, when is this traffic going to clear?

My phone ringing on the dashboard startled me. Oh, God. Please let it not be the boss. Please. And if it was, it wouldn’t be the first time I had to make a U-turn and head back to the office for some last-minute urgent all-nighter. I took a deep breath.

But it wasn’t the boss. It was someone I hadn’t spoken to in a really long time. So long, in fact, I didn’t know how to pick up the call.

“Uh, hi-lo?” I cringed. I’d started off wanting to say, Hi, and then changed my mind midway to Hello. What an idiot.

Silence on the other end. Okay, a chance at redemption.

“Hello? Jian? You there?” I looked down at my phone to check if the call was still on, and I had a signal. Digi coverage sometimes, I tell you.

“Gor?”

That one word had me stunned. He hadn’t called me gor gor, or big brother, in a long while.

“Um, yeah?” I cleared my throat, waiting for him to continue. I really had no idea why he was calling me out of the blue after not having spoken to me for so long.

We’d had a huge argument just before I’d left for my apprenticeship in KL. Something stupid, I’m sure. But I barely remember. He’d yelled at me, I’d yelled at him. He’d slammed the door, I’d kicked it.

Mind you, this was nothing out of the ordinary for me and my brother. We’d always had a hard time getting along. Just…never connected with him. And an age gap of 6 years didn’t help. He had always been a brat, the tattletale that would get me in trouble all the time. We had different interests, different circles, different lives.

So when I left for KL, I didn’t look back. I mean, I was overwhelmed and swallowed up by the demands of my work too, of course. But I also didn’t really care. The few occasions that I did go home, we both very easily avoided each other. My family was not the type to have meals together anyway. We were just strangers who lived in the same house.

Initially, there was mostly anger. Probably residues from the last fight we had. But over time, it just became less and less uncomfortable, not talking, until there wasn’t much feeling left. It felt weird to bring it up anymore, and so we didn’t. I had no need to talk to him, and neither did he. It stressed my parents out, but they didn’t have much say. They knew they couldn’t force either of us to do anything. And so, it was left to be.

It's been four years. And now, I’m getting a call? From him?

“How are you, Gor? It’s…been a long time.”

Maybe it was the tone of his voice. Maybe it’s the fact that I know I’d have been the last person in the world he would have wanted to call. But it felt like…he needed me. For once, my little brother needed me.

I inhaled. “Okay. Talk to me. What’s up?” And somehow, I could hear him smile on the other end.

-THE END-

(C) Copyright Lisa Kwan 2023
#LizsStoryChallenge